


The Last Tickybox

by ArwenLune



Series: Rock Happy 'verse [7]
Category: Generation Kill, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, No seriously this probably shouldn't go in the mission report, Team, The Further Adventures Of Brad Colbert IN SPACE, Weird missions, Women Being Awesome, original character of colour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/ArwenLune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Laura is going to be so disappointed that she missed this important moment in your gate mission induction," Lt. Brittner informed Brad. "This ticks the final tickybox, after this mission you're officially not a newbie anymore."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Tickybox

**Author's Note:**

> The Further Adventures Of Brad Colbert and AR4 in Pegasus. Sequel to Rock Happy, so you should probably read that first. If you have a day or so, it's kinda long :-)

Their fourth first-contact mission was going well, Brad thought. Immediately after walking through the Gate all three of his teammates had gotten that far away things-are-talking-to-me look and he'd been alarmed, because the things that talked to gene carriers weren't always good things. But after only a moment Captain Avery had snapped his attention back to the present with a big grin.

Apparently there was a large underground base close by that his team mates were trying to stop from initialising. Lt. Brittner had described it as 'trying to ignore a very large, very enthusiastic dog that's thrilled to see you'. They thought it might be a drone factory, and drones were something the expedition always needed more of.

The local population revered the Ancients, and had a great many artefacts as part of their culture. Several had lit up as the team entered the village, which had made for a spectacular first meeting, and they seemed pleased to get to know the team. They'd been invited to participate in an important ritual, for which they needed to bathe in the hot springs first. So far, so good.

In fact Brad had felt remarkably optimistic about the mission. Finding the base made the mission into an instant success, but to be able to check it out and bring in a science team they needed to make nice with the locals. Even if that meant submitting to some uncomfortable rituals.

His optimism lasted right up 'till the point where they were presented with garments to put on after their ritual bath in the springs.

* * *

Lt. Brittner held hers out in front of her. It was little more than a stroke of fabric that - at most - went once around her hips and up across her torso to drape over her shoulder. And it was a gauzy, see through kind of material.

"Um, sir? What exactly did you volunteer us for?" she said slowly.

"They say it will bring great fortune upon our new alliance if the children of the Ancestors bless the Rites of Communion with their future generations," the Captain said from where he was digging in his pack, not looking up.

"Right. And that didn't sound..." the Lieutenant trailed off, still looking at the sheer garment.

"Orgy-ish?" Dr Fournier supplied, looking over her shoulder.

"Yeah... that."

"What?" Avery looked up in irritated bemusement, apparently not finding what he was looking for, and the LT showed him the garment she was still holding.

"Oh." Then, after a long moment in which his face did something complicated, "really?"

"Communion with future generations? I'd say so," Michèl said. "Especially given the whole bathing and wearing of minimal clothing thing."

"Really? You would have translated 'Communion with future generations' to 'orgy'?"

Michèl made a 'what can you do?' hand motion. Lt. Brittner seemed to vacillate between exasperation and hilarity.

Captain Avery looked at him, and Brad made his best 'don't look at me, I'm just the NCO' face. It earned him an eyeroll. He was almost too busy being amused to feel horrified at the situation they were in.

"So... I'm just going to chat with Ruya for a bit, okay?" the Lieutenant said brightly. She draped the gauzy fabric over her arm, incongruous with her BDUs, and strode off purposefully to speak to the village leader.

The three men exchanged awkward looks. It took Brad a few minutes to realise that at least the Captain was not so much embarrassed by the idea of an orgy as by the fact that he hadn't spotted it and averted in time. What that meant he wasn't sure. Maybe the rumours going at the NCO table weren't so outrageous as he'd thought.

* * *

Lt. Brittner returned after fifteen minutes, wearing a bland expression but with eyes full of mirth. She was also carrying considerably more fabric, rolls of which she tossed to each of them. It was the same gauzy fabric, but a lot more of it. Enough to wrap around several times and at least achieve opacity.

"They have an Ancient device that lights up when they 'commune with future generations'," she said, neatly dropping the air quotes into place. "I suspect it's reacting to airborne pheromones, or possibly it really is a conception detector. Fuck knows the Ancients made some weird stuff."

"Anyway, I have convinced Ruya that as children of the Ancestors we commune with future generations in a different manner," she said once they had finished examining the new costumes. "We will be holding hands and..." she made a vague, floaty hands gesture, "commune in spirit."

"Holding hands and watching the orgy?" Avery said tonelessly, as if probing the situation for its full cringe value.

"Listening to it," Lt. Brittner admitted. "I tried to convince her that our communing works best in private, but apparently it will be of great significance to the people here if the children of the Ancestors are present during the rites. There will be a cloth partition."

"Oh, this won't be awkward _at all_ ," Michèl  shook his head ruefully.

"Laura is going to be so disappointed that she missed this important moment in your gate mission induction," Lt. Brittner informed Brad seriously. "' _Uncomfortable sexually tinted ritual'_ ticks the final tickybox, after this you're officially not a newbie anymore."

* * *

Everything he'd learned about the Lieutenant so far said that she should be deeply uncomfortable with this entire chain of events - even to the point of aborting the mission. Her amusement came as a surprise, and apparently not only to him.

"Oh, the bathing is communal, but I've checked and they have no taboos about ink," she breezed past the important point. "They might find the tattoos quite interesting though."

It was addressed to nobody in specific, and he wondered who else had tattoos. Not something he'd expect of any of them, though he'd seen the small one on her arm. Well, apparently he would see soon enough.

"How come you're all comfortable with this, Lee?" The Captain asked a little plaintively. "I would have thought you'd be more upset."

"One-" she held up a finger, " _Drone factory_. Two: I've had the birds and bees talk on every other planet since I started going through the Stargate. I could probably write a PhD about fertility customs and rituals in pre-industrial societies. This galaxy spends so much time obsessing about my reproductive organs, it's nice to _all_ feel awkward for a change."

"But what about the Rinerians? You were _really_ uncomfortable with them."

"You really didn't notice O'Dannough's comments about that statue they gave me?"

Brad caught a glance of Avery's expression - a mix of dismayed surprise and guilt - and discretely removed himself from earshot. He might have been a little bit gratified at the idea that her being comfortable meant she was apparently no longer expecting him to act like a dick, but he didn't want to make it harder for the Captain to acknowledge he'd not seen the problems with Brad's predecessor. A few minutes later Michèl joined him at the fireplace next to their tent.

"Are you okay with this, Brad?"

He shrugged.

"Marines have no shame, doc."

Michèl gave him a very dry look.

"Okay, gonna be awkward. I can deal."

The other man nodded, accepting that.

* * *

The bathing thing was uncomfortable, but not quite as much as he'd worried it would be. Mostly because the rest of the team seemed to roll with the situation, and the natives were completely unselfconscious. He marvelled that apparently you really _could_ become inured to seeing naked female bodies just as you could to male ones.

People had split according to gender lines, and the two groups alternated between the thermal baths and the icy mountain water basin. After a moment of conferring with the Captain the Lieutenant had joined the women and was now gamely enduring questions about tattoos, dogtags, and the large blotches of ugly, unpigmented skin that stretched from her hip to above her knee. That had to have been a really serious burn. Well-healed, but you could see where there'd been skin grafts.

Michèl had scars of his own - his torso was littered with small, pale, perfectly round marks that Brad couldn't match to any weapon he knew. By the way the Captain kept distracting people with stories whenever somebody got too interested in the doctor, Brad suspected it was something Michèl _really_ didn't want to talk about. The man was far less engaged with his surroundings that he'd otherwise would have been in the middle of friendly natives with interesting rituals.

The next time they returned to the hot baths Brad seated himself on Michèl's other side, so that he and the Captain were bracketing the man. When a boy of about ten didn't take the hint, Brad drew attention to his own tattoo and, owing to long association with Ray Person, managed to spin such a tale of bullshit about its meaning that it took them all the way to the end of the bathing session.

* * *

His entire body felt sharp and bright and almost buzzy from the circulation-shocking hot-and-cold bathing. Brad tried to arrange the thin white fabric into something he hoped looked like a kilt, not a skirt. Michèl had gone with the toga approach and was sort of carrying it off, while Captain Avery was drawing looks - and propositions - with the way the white kilt showed off his dark brown skin and broad torso.

"You guys are lucky I'm so devoted to you," he said dryly after politely turning down a third offer.

"Never think we don't appreciate it, sir," Lt. Brittner answered, approaching their tent. Her initial shapeless toga attempt had been deemed unacceptable by some of the local women, and they had whisked her off to a different tent to help her dress. The resulting draped dress showed off her shape rather more than he suspected she was comfortable with.

"While I wouldn't want to discount your charms, from what Ruya said the interest also has something to do with genetic diversity."

"Oh! That is interesting," Michèl perked up. "If the origin of inviting new trade partners or alliances to participate in this ritual was to ensure genetic diversity in their population, then it makes sense that Darren, who is visibly not related to anybody here, should get much interest."

"Okay, urgh." The Captain made a face. " _Much_ less flattering. _And_ I have just realised that if we're going to be sending people here to explore the..." vague gesture to the ground, apparently meaning 'underground drone factory', "all of this will need to go into the report. If anybody knows a better way to phrase 'aliens tried to make us do it,' I am open to suggestions."

* * *

The sounds on the other side of the curtain seemed to indicate that the meditation part was finished and people were moving on to the... interactive part of the ritual. The four of them had been sitting in a circle for half an hour now, holding hands.

Brad felt both Lt. Brittner and Michèl shift a little, and opened his eyes. Captain Avery gave him a look that seemed full of mischief, and let go of the other's hands to take something out of the folds of the rolled waistband of his kilt. He unrolled it to put it in the middle - a pen and a couple of sheets torn from his crossword book.

Brad grinned. Lt. Brittner nodded approvingly.

Michèl reached into the folds of his toga and, after a moment of resettling the fabric, brought out a power bar he tossed into the middle of the circle.

They all gave him expectant looks, and Brad gave in and showed that he'd rolled his smaller combat knife into the fabric at the small of his back. They had apparently expected something less practical, but he still got approving nods.

All three of them turned to the Lieutenant, who had that glimmer in her eyes that probably meant she had something up her sleeve. Or down her robe. Or something.

She reached into the folds of her draped dress and her face fell as she brought out a chocolate bar that had gone soft inside its foil wrapper. Brad tried not to think about the whole body heat thing, because that idea in combination with the current soundtrack wasn't going to go anywhere good.  Michèl put the chocolate against the jug of cool water they'd been given. The Lieutenant reached back into a fold around her waist and, throwing a conspiratorial look around their little circle, unearthed something else.

It was a Nintendo DS.

 

Which was how AR-4 ended up playing a fiercely competitive Tetris tournament while listening to an orgy.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback plz?


End file.
